Posts made by DenisKelley

WTF is an organic conversation?

This is funny.

@Carnival-Boy said:

What do you do about any machines that aren't on the network - either at the time of the audit, or generally?

I went through one a year or so ago. Agree, you install the software and then let it analyze the network, then upload the results. I have one or two machines off the network and provided that information via the support portal. One was an off-site employee and the other was using the home-use rights allowed under the license.

We passed with flying colors. I thing we got tagged because I'm not using network licensing and had a few machines go belly up and didn't get a chance to upload the license to their cloud servers, so probably hit one too many activations. Plus I was doing a ton of machine swaps at the time during our upgrade.

If you are licensed properly, no fear. Just go through the motions and you'll be fine.

I've actually been using a nested hypervisor for over a month now as I run through the MS 40-710 training. I've got it running on a Dell T110 that currently is running ESXi 5.1 and nested on top of that is 2012R2 Servers and Hyper-V Servers so I can learn in a lab environment. Using Pluralsight videos and can play along with the VMs as I go through the training.

I've run Veeam both (in the past for over a year) on a VM on one of my hosts and now on a physical server. The latter is recent and I'm doing B2D2T and my LTO hangs off the physical server. Just was a free box. Whether physical or virtual, definitely keep the backup config in a different location. With that, it really doesn't take long to get it back somewhere else. My target is still a NAS using CIFS, but that will change probably when I redo my storage and hosts. You get a decent performance boost by using it as a iSCSI target vs CIFS. Mine works fine with the latter, so YMMV.

Check out http://www.goodrx.com/ It has been pretty decent at reducing some prescription prices.

@Dashrender said:

@DenisKelley said:

@Dashrender said:

@JaredBusch said:

@wrx7m said:

@Dashrender said:

@JaredBusch said:

@Dashrender said:

You create a local backup with Veeam - which of course creates a snap.... and then you do a replication with Veeam from one hypervisor to another? why are you using Veeam to do that instead of the built in hypervisor tools? But that's really beside the point.

Because VMWare.

Doing that clearly makes the server run a snap twice (unless it can be run in a single job). and put strain on the VM host while replicating to the remote site.

1. Backups run nightly.
2. Not all servers are replicated
3. Replication gives you more restore points throughout the day in addition to the failover capability

How do you get number 3?

It creates replication points? That's not how I've ever understood how replication works.

Veeam 9 offers multiple restore points on replicas -
https://www.veeam.com/vm-advanced-replication.html
under failover and failback section.

Even Hyper-V has this built into replication. You can choose to keep XX number of replication points. Honestly this is not much different than people keeping XX snapshots on the local host for immediate rollback needs.

you can't pick and choose roll backs, if you pick two snaps ago, you loose the one from one snap ago.

See above about replication I just posted. I'm using replication like JB in that I'm just using it for convenient backup not true replication for DR failover. JB may be doing it similarly.

Does that use 12x time disk space of the VM?

Not at all. It similar to Forward incremental. One big file with delta snaps.

@Dashrender said:

@JaredBusch said:

@wrx7m said:

@Dashrender said:

@JaredBusch said:

@Dashrender said:

You create a local backup with Veeam - which of course creates a snap.... and then you do a replication with Veeam from one hypervisor to another? why are you using Veeam to do that instead of the built in hypervisor tools? But that's really beside the point.

Because VMWare.

Doing that clearly makes the server run a snap twice (unless it can be run in a single job). and put strain on the VM host while replicating to the remote site.

1. Backups run nightly.
2. Not all servers are replicated
3. Replication gives you more restore points throughout the day in addition to the failover capability

How do you get number 3?

It creates replication points? That's not how I've ever understood how replication works.

Veeam 9 offers multiple restore points on replicas -
https://www.veeam.com/vm-advanced-replication.html
under failover and failback section.

Even Hyper-V has this built into replication. You can choose to keep XX number of replication points. Honestly this is not much different than people keeping XX snapshots on the local host for immediate rollback needs.

you can't pick and choose roll backs, if you pick two snaps ago, you loose the one from one snap ago.

See above about replication I just posted. I'm using replication like JB in that I'm just using it for convenient backup not true replication for DR failover. JB may be doing it similarly.

@Sparkum said:

Maybe what happened with the VM filling up and crashing is something stupid that I could fix with a simple phone call to Veeam, but like every company we have certain servers that cant have downtime during business hours, so if something like that happened on one of our critical servers shit will hit the fan so fast.

As mentioned again by others, your "VM" is not filling up. You are running out of space on your datastore during the snapshot process. Can you post your datastore size and free space?

Like JB, I also do replication of certain VMs. I don't count it really as my real backup, but rather like shadow copies in Windows. For example, we have monthlies to tape and a typical tape rotational schedule. Sometimes I need to restore something pretty far back and came to find that since I offload the backup to tape, it can take up to 3 hours just to get the file first off the tape and then get Veeam to restore what I need. So I had an aha moment. I now craft a replica job for my project server each month to a cheap HP Microserver that mirrors my monthly backup tape schedule. I keep 12 replicas corresponding to each month. Now if someone wants something restored from 10 months ago, I can restore it from the replica way faster.

This software is the shiznit.

@DustinB3403 said:

What are you trying to backup, I'm guessing your VM's.

If so can you back them up to a local storage unit like a Synology NAS, and use that as the push device for your off-site?

Definitely the way to go here. Trying to push backup over 5/5 (depending on amount of data) is gonna be....well tough.

By no means was it in one shot.

I was going server by server, 2 worked successfully, the third the **snapshot outgrew the server **and crashed it.

To be honest, this is not a Veeam issue, it's a storage problem. You'd have the same problem with other software applications that backup at the VM level.

Replication would be a good idea as mentioned above. However, it doesn't solve your off-site backup issue. It gives you a near-term DR solution. The good thing about replication is that you can multiple restore points and you don't need to run another full once you seed the DR location. You still need an off-site backup solution and even going Forward Incremental, you still need the occasional full which, mentioned above, will kill your Internet. Even looking at doing someone at the NAS level like rsync, you'll likely run into the same situation when the full gets kicked off occasionally.

Other solution for offs-site would be with tape and Veeam backup copy jobs. Not ideal since you'll need it at multiple locations. You might try using hard drives instead and that can be done with Veeam, but depending on your data retention needs, who knows how many you'd need.

Did you steal the font from the Miami Dolphins? That was might first impression.

Best explanation regarding this that I've seen. See Jay's response:
http://community.spiceworks.com/topic/post/4301599

I learned some C++ back in the day and probably forgot all of that. But if you want, check out a product called Ironspeed Designer. It is pretty awesome. http://www.ironspeed.com/products/Overview.aspx#gsc.tab=0

@JaredBusch said:

@DenisKelley said:

If you are trying to use Veeam, the standard setup would to have a server running a second copy of Veeam B&R at the target site. You'll link the two and configure the replicas. You do not need to purchase a second Veeam license to do this, but you will need a running B&R at the DR site.

That was my understanding of how it works, but it has been almost two years since I talked to Veeam about it.

With what I've seen with v9, you now can do full failover scripted ahead of time to make it a bit more turn-key during a disaster.

If you are trying to use Veeam, the standard setup would to have a server running a second copy of Veeam B&R at the target site. You'll link the two and configure the replicas. You do not need to purchase a second Veeam license to do this, but you will need a running B&R at the DR site.

You really haven't posted much detail and that's fine if you are just wishing to ditch the product. Have you opened up a support case with Veeam? Have they checked out your logs and stuff. I had a bizarre issue with 7 once and tech support was pretty good. Did any of the conditions in my link check out?

@anonymous
Maybe show some datacenter/backup config might help. There are a number of reasons why hot add might not work. See here:
https://www.veeam.com/kb1054

I've had one situation like that happen, but it was the backup of the veeam server (vmware) where the proxy was already installed. I'm off to a meeting, but will check back in the AM. Things like what hypervisor, disk version, hypervisor version, backup type (forward vs reverse) and even when version of Veeam will matter.

I'm a big Veeam enthusiast. Can you detail what you are having issues with and maybe I or another can help you?

@brianlittlejohn said:

So, the company doing the SAM audit actually replied back to me and confirmed it is Just Microsoft Virtual Server.

These audit forms are pointless, they dont ask about any vm's or anything.

They will. I just successfully passed my SAM audit and had to fully document my virtual environment. There will be another spreadsheet.

I got one of these for giggles at BJs and nothing sticks to this thing:
http://www.bedbathandbeyond.com/store/product/the-rock-by-starfrit-nonstick-fry-pan/3255031

Got one for $20. Best pan so far.
Youtube Video